The Three Legged Dog

Having trouble trying to sleep tonight, so I was standing at my bedroom window for a while looking at the stars.  Its a reasonably clear night and I recognised some of the constellations even though I can't remember their names and it made me think of another night when my son was about 8 years old, it must have been winter-time as we were walking home after Beavers and it was dark.  On the way, we stopped to say hello to a lovely old gentleman who lived nearby, who was out walking his dog - we chatted to him for a while and "M" was asking him questions about the stars as he knew a lot more about them than we did; and then finally "M" asked him a question that I'm guessing had been troubling him for quite some time "Why does your dog only have three legs?"

"Well" said our companion, "it's actually a very sad story.  There was once a time, a few years ago, I had no food in the cupboards and no money to be able to go out and buy some.  It got to the stage where I was so hungry that I really had to eat something..." by this point in the tale my son, who'd been listening with great interest, had a look of complete horror on his face - while I was stood there biting my tongue to try and stop myself from laughing and spoiling the effect!

I'm pleased to say that the gentleman did go on and explain to my son that it had actually been an accident, when his dog had been a puppy, it had tried to follow his daughter's dog over a brick wall and his leg had been so badly broken that it couldn't be saved.

I don't know what made me think of that story tonight.  The gentleman died some years ago, his three-legged dog went to live with his daughter and my son and I missed our little chats with the gentleman and tickles with his dog - a very friendly, scruffy looking, medium sized mongrel.  We used to see him often when we were out walking, they were a much loved part of our community.  Back then, we had a great little local shop/Post Office just around the corner that sold newspapers, sweets and groceries - our friends were such regulars and so popular that the shop owners used to keep a tin behind the counter with dog treats in especially our three-legged friend.  I'm feeling very guilty at the moment because I can't remember the names of either the gentleman or his dog even though I can picture them in my mind.  But hopefully they're happy that they still live on in our memories as I know my son still remembers them too.

Sorry that this post isn't a craft related one - unless you count the fact that I took these photos out of the same window I was stargazing through tonight.  They were taken a couple of years ago on the night of a "super moon" which was so bright it cast shadows distinct enough to see clearly.  Believe it or not but the photo below was taken of my bedroom wall opposite the window I took the top photo through on the same night!  You can see the silhouette of my cat who was sitting on the window ledge, the pile of books I rested my camera on, and you can almost see the colours of the stained glass panel, I made years ago, that hangs in my window.

I'm sorry too, that it's been so long since I last wrote a blog post.  I've been struggling with my health, have been finding it hard to do any crafting and also coming to terms with not going back to finish my university studies this year.  I didn't want to walk away from my course and in fact I still have the option of going back if I want to, once I feel well enough.  I think maybe I've been letting it all get me down lately so even on the days when my hands haven't been as painful, I haven't been able to persuade myself to pick up my needle and thread, or other crafting tools and get on with something creative unless its been at craft club, or more recently, a couple of printing workshops I've attended - but I'll blog about those another day (with the emphasis on day!).

Crafting is something that does generally make me feel better about myself and those workshops have thankfully given me some much needed inspiration.  I've been catching up on a few of the blogs I usually follow recently too and I really like the idea that some of them follow - 52 weeks of happy - this means that they do one blog a week where they write about 3 things that have made them happy over the past 7 days and I think its something I'd like to try too.  I had planned to start my 52 weeks with the start of 2014 but I don't suppose you really need to wait, its something you can do at anytime, so I'm thinking that I might just start looking for my 3 happy things from now.

But for moment, I think the most sensible thing I could do would be to go back to bed and try to get some sleep, so I wish you all a good night, a great weekend and fingers crossed that the hurricane thats been forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning, blows itself out before it reaches land!

Sue Bear

This is "Sue Bear", she was made in memory of a dear friend who died unexpectedly earlier this year.  I miss my friend dreadfully, the long conversations about anything and everything, the hard work she put into keeping our local Fibromyalgia, ME & CFS support group going, the gluten-free chocolate cupcakes she always arranged for the December meetings, her navigation skills when we went out in my car, but most of all, I miss her laugh - it was one of those infectious laughs that you just couldn't resist joining in and having a good giggle yourself!  She was truly an amazing person with such wide-ranging interests.

Sue had always encouraged me with my bears, she came up with ideas when I was stuck on how to do something and as she knew that one day I'm planning my own teddy bear's picnic story, she used to pick up little bears and other animals to play bit parts in the photographs I'll eventually take to illustrate it.

I always intended to make Sue one of my bears and I thought there would be plenty of time...  I've always had a "Teddy-to-do List" and Sue was on it - I just didn't reach her name in time.  Sue was always a keen crafter herself and some of her craft supplies and tools were left to me, in fact Sue Bear's necklace is made entirely from Sue's supplies and contains 44 beads - one for each year of Sue's life.  I chose to make this bear from green and brown fabrics because Sue had a great love for nature - and oak trees - so the colours seemed to be the right choice.

It's funny... each bear takes on it's own little personality as its made and many of my bears have quite serious expressions, but this little bear looks (to me at least) as though she has a little smile on her face.  I'm not completely sure where Sue Bear will eventually end up, I just felt that she needed to be made, but I'm sure she'll eventually end up exactly where she is supposed to be.

Hopefully I won't leave it so long before I post another blog, I've just been feeling very out of sorts lately.

The White Cliffs of Dover

The title I've used for this post always makes me think of that Vera Lynn song that was so popular during WWII - not that I was around back then, but I'm lucky enough to live very close to the cliffs and as a child, I lived even closer.

I grew up in a little village, off the beaten track between Dover and Deal.  We moved there when I was 8 years old and I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in such a beautiful place - in fact I've always wanted to be able to move back there one day, but I can't complain about the town where I currently live and I'm only 5 miles away from my childhood home and about half a mile from my local beach.

I haven't been feeling too well over the past few months, not helped by going down with one virus after another since December, but having not been out for nearly a week, a little bit of sunshine and feeling as though the walls were closing in, I rang one of my friends the other week and after having my friend help me select a button for my new bag which I'll show you in a future post, we took a little drive down to the beach of my childhood and spent a very pleasant couple of hours enjoying the peace and tranquility of the place from the comfort of my car - it was a bitterly cold day!  We did venture out of the car briefly to take a look at the latest cliff fall and take a few photos of it and here is one of mine...

This was just a quick snap with my little compact camera as I wasn't up to hauling my 'proper' camera gear about but I'm happy with the result (apart from the wonky horizon) as it shows some very white Dover cliffs.  I've often heard people say that the cliffs weren't as white as they'd expected, but after a cliff fall like this, the cliffs are amazingly white, and the water had a milky quality from the chalk that had fallen into the sea.

I've often wondered what I would be like to live in one of these houses (there are three) tucked under the cliffs... on one hand I think it would make me nervous, although that part of the cliffs is probably more stable as its not subjected to the waves, but living here must also be a wonderful experience - what a fantastic view!

These houses have had some very famous occupants over the years; Noel Coward lived here for some time, although it is said that he moved away because he found the view too distracting and struggled to get work done here.  Ian Flemming on the other hand seems to have been inspired by the view as he wrote and based the novel "Moonraker" here.  Its also said that the London to Dover coach - which still bears the service number 007 also provided inspiration for a certain character but there is much argument on that subject and sadly we'll never know the truth.  But having travelled on that service a number of times myself when I was younger, I like the idea.